


Divenire

by barnettdidit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco plays the piano a lot, Draco's POV, EWE, F/M, Falling In Love, HEA - Happy Ever After, Pianist! Draco, Post-War, Theo is a bit insane, he rly cant stop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27740965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barnettdidit/pseuds/barnettdidit
Summary: He leaned down and waited until she retracted her hand, before laying his fingers on the keys and quickly playing the correct tune. He held down the one she’d misplayed, waiting as the note stretched out.“This one. It’s half a note higher.”“Oh!”And she repeated the melody as he had played it perfectly, over and over, and then she looked up at him and shot him the most perfect smile that split her cheeks and lit her warm eyes.“Thank you!”// Draco has played the piano all his life, but the music never sounded quite right. That is, until he runs into Granger again, years after the war.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 60
Kudos: 252





	Divenire

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the lovely insane people on twitter who wanted a piano dramione headcanon. I dearly hope this is what you all imagined. I recommend listening to piano music while you're reading; I personally listened to Ludovico Einaudi while writing. I imagine the piece Draco plays for her at the end to be Divenire by him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAPapYhDSUc this is not the piano only version though.  
> I hope you enjoy!!

_“Never forget who we are, Draco. We’re royalty.”_

They were words that had been ingrained into Draco for as long as he could remember; in fact, he believed, it would not have surprised him if they were the first words his mother had whispered into his hair after he had been born.

The promise of superiority, better times to come, of inheriting something much grander than himself; it hung over him like a dark cloud since infancy.

The Malfoys they were; powerful, rich, pure-blooded of course, and with an amount of influence that could move the basis of society as he knew it. Draco understood very well what royalty was; it was the Kings and Queens of times long forgotten and times ahead of him. It was the Queen of the muggle world he was not apart of, someone so powerful and beloved yet under so much pressure from an entire nation.

And ever since Draco could remember he knew that he was like the little princes and princesses, but even better; because no one knew about their power. And if they did, no one talked about it. Because no one wanted to cross the Malfoys.

It was so that Draco grew up with the most advanced education, high-quality toys, tutors always attending to his every need, accompanying him everywhere he went; but they all left in the end, leaving him in his dark, cold room at night with a pillow hugged tight into his chest, staring at the pitch-black ceiling and waiting for the familiar clack of his mothers heels in the hallway outside.

It was a ritual they never talked of. They didn’t talk in general. Draco got everything he wanted with a snap of his fingers; the newest broom, the best brewing kit, the latest toy. The one thing he truly wanted, he got just once a night; when Narcissa came into his bedroom to kiss him goodnight even though he was asleep, but he wasn’t, and she knew that. She would always lean down and stroke a hand over his head, pressing her lips against his forehead and whisper those words.

_“Never forget who we are, Draco. We’re royalty.”_

And then she left him alone, and he had to wait for his lids to grow tired enough to make him fall asleep as he stared out the window into the moonlit fields and woods of what would soon be his.

When Draco was a rosy-cheeked, bug-eyed little five-year-old, always ready to unleash the screeching of a banshee if he didn’t immediately get his way, he was introduced to yet another tutor; he had enough already, the young boy thought, with all of his language and flying and math and history lessons.

Mr. Singer was a grey-haired man with bushy eyebrows, who Draco thought to be at least 300 years old. Not quite, Mr. Singer laughed when Draco blurted it out the second he saw him; he was only 63, he promised, waggling his eyebrows and Draco would laugh.

The aged man made Draco laugh a lot. He was there to teach him how to play the piano, which Draco found funny; his name made the nature of his profession ironic.

Piano lessons quickly became Draco’s favourite part of his busy kindergarten schedule; Mr. Singer never yelled French vocabulary at him or made him recite historic key moments of his family. No, he let Draco do whatever he wanted to do that day.

Which during the first few weeks, consisted of Draco smashing random keys at his leisure. Draco liked the sound of chaos; the notes tuning in and out and creating a cacophony of horrible, mashed tunes that resembled the turmoil broiling behind his forehead where Narcissa kissed him every night.

“How about we try this?”

Mr. Singer said it once after weeks of Draco’s abuse of the expensive child piano, as he pushed a sheet of notes onto the little wooden stand perched above the keys; it had rows of lines and funny little black spots on the lines.

“What’s that?”, he yawned and picked his nose, and Mr. Singer tapped the sheet.

“It’s called Für Elise, and you’re going to play it.”

It was a slow process at first. Learning how to read a sheet; what each note was called and what those odd little symbols meant, was far beyond what Draco was interested in, and many lessons were spent doing nothing but smacking the piano around. But Mr. Singer never faltered, he never stopped, he always let Draco do as the mayhem in his mind demanded him to do.

By the time his sticky little fingers finally played a respectable tune, months had passed, yet Mr. Singer stayed unendingly patient.

The years were eaten by time, and around the blur of tutors coming and going, hearing in passing of what happened before he was born – something involving Muggleborns and someone dark and a lord – the only constant in Draco’s life was his mother’s goodnight kiss every night when he was not yet asleep, and the soft smile of Mr. Singer that he was always greeted with at four in the afternoon. And as Draco grew, so did his pianos; every year he got a new one, bigger than the last, to match his growth spurts.

By the time he was ten, Narcissa stopped coming into his room every night. He saw Lucius even less; always out and about, talking to people and doing important stuff for their legacy, so he was told; being powerful and all of that, all of which he would be too, one day.

By the time Narcissa and her whispers disappeared, Mr. Singers growing moustache to fit his grey-streaked eyebrows, was the only thing Draco could count on to be there every day; that, and the lovely tunes he could finally play onto the keys that never quite moved how he wanted them to. He was a perfectionist and Mr. Singer told him so; to stop worrying about the strictness of the sheets, and rather play what was in his heart.

But Draco could not feel his heart anymore by the time he started going to Hogwarts; it was replaced with that knowledge he had picked up along the way.

Muggleborns had mistaken their place in his world.

The Dark Lord was right, but he could not speak of him outside of his trusted circles.

Harry Potter was his enemy.

And so were his friends.

And that first day at Hogwarts, when Draco was denied Harry’s hand, he looked at the redhead Weasley grinning stupidly and promised himself that he would hate Harry Potter’s friends just as much as the boy himself. And he kept to that promise.

Draco only ever saw Mr. Singer during summer break, for the scheduled four lessons a week. For his 13th birthday, Draco got a sleek, black Bösendorfer piano, and he played it until his fingers were sore and the music melted into mushed nothingness pounding in his ears.

He missed the music when he was at school. He dreamed of being alone in the Manor, with no one else home, playing at his heart’s desire; Debussy, Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Satie was on the menu every night. And his staggering fingers would glide across the keys so perfectly, like they were meant to be there, always finding the right one and playing it just the way he always imagined, the way he never managed in real life.

With heart. Without the darkness waiting to engulf him at all times. It was just Draco and his Bösendorfer in the spotlight; a pitch black surrounding his stage, but never touching him. He was one with the light, the music, the flowing tunes; they rushed through his veins and danced at his fingertips where they found their way into every key, flourishing the most beautiful melodies, much more magnificient than he could have ever known himself to play.

It was bliss. And every time, the flitting music melted into the chirping of birds outside the window, and he woke up to a bleak, grey world that provided him with nothing but hate and anger and chaos.

When Draco returned home from his Fourth year, Lucius told him in passing at the dinner table that Mr. Singer had passed away from an unfortunate accident.

Draco never knew what accident, because by the time the crucial information reached his brain – Mr. Singer was dead, gone, his sweet smile and warm presence was never going to come back, never sit by the side of his Bösendorfer again to show him how to play this particular accord - Draco could hear nothing but the rushing and pounding of his blood in his ears and his blurry vision making it impossible to differentiate the mashed potatoes from the peas on his plate.

A Malfoy never showed his emotions.

Draco didn’t look up from his plate again that evening; he blinked back the tears and tried to keep the gusts of his breath gushing out of his chest under control, screaming to be pushed out into a silent sob that could only transform into a languid wail.

When Draco was finally dismissed from dinner, he slowly, steadfastly, walked into his room. He laid in bed that night, staring at the ceiling; waiting for Narcissa to come and kiss him on the forehead, for the melodies in his head to subside, to forget about the last constant of his life, finally gone.

Draco did not think about music or Mr. Singer again for at least a year.

The grievances of Lucius being sent away to prison and the invasion of the Dark Lord in his own home kept him on guard. He knew what he had to do.

_“Never forget who we are, Draco. We’re royalty.”_

The words he had not heard in years but never forgotten bounced around in his head while he stared at the black-tiled floor of his salon, seeing yet not really seeing; dissociating his mind from the pain being inflicted by the wand pressed against his right forearm, where a cold hand held his trembling limb in place and foreign words echoed through the room. He had never been this close to the Dark Lord before, and that night in bed, Draco flexed his fingers over and over, tapping them over his bedsheets in tune to one Sonate Bureaucratique by Erik Satie, to distract him from the tingling pain where the Dark Mark was newly etched into his skin.

Mr. Singers soft voice came to him at a sudden.

_“Mistakes are more than an error. They’re an opportunity to improve. Now, try again.”_

That night, Draco allowed himself to cry for his old beloved teacher for the first time; more than a year after he died. He cried for Mr. Singer and himself, so selfishly; for the innocence he had left in the salon, rooted into spot where he received the Mark that would brand him forever.

He mourned the piano teacher and the boy he met ten years ago, who bashed the keys as he liked and with no restraint, yet already so trapped within his own circumstances.

Draco allowed that grief for one night, one evening, when he sobbed into his cold, dark bedroom, the tears choking him and running out of the corners of his eyes straight into the pillow until his frantic fingers subsided their tapping under the blanket and he fell unconscious.

The pillow was still wet the next morning.

Later in life, Draco understood why he barely remembered his Sixth year anymore. Memory loss was a known possible side effect of trauma and stress. Few moments stood out, naturally; almost dying at the hand of Harry Potter he’d consider to be high on the list of memorable instances; the wet, cold soaking into his clothes, his skin and bones weighing him down into the floor, the pain so very blinding.

The wounds gaping in the cold air, the agony so hot and white and searing and pulsing. Taking away everything else he knew and left nothing for him to grapple at but the staggering air he was sucking in in low sobs, crying and sobbing. The pain melted into mushy, cotton lightness and when he lost consciousness on that grimy, wet bathroom floor covered in his blood, the thought of his imminent death was the best thing he had heard of in a while.

Another was on the Astronomy Tower, pointing his trembling wand at his calm Headmaster, choking out words of desperation, denying the help he so badly wanted to take; Draco was no royalty anymore, he was a blunt instrument used in a war, and he had his part to play in it. And yet, he could not do the one task he had gotten from the Dark Lord himself, and proved his worst fears, the ones Narcissa had whispered away since infancy; he was worthless, weak-minded, never meant for great things. Only one of many expendables in a war he had helped in manifesting.

The months spent repairing he Vanishing Cabinet were gone from his mind. The hours every day in the Room of Requirement were not painted by the never-ending, dull, painful task of testing and repairing and testing it again and again; they had been pushed away by another red thread that he could only remember now anymore.

It was an old, out of tune piano that stood amongst the vast piles of chaos and miscellaneous, and it was Draco’s haven.

He applied the few spells Mr. Singer had taught him to try and tune it, but even then, it still sounded a bit odd. And Draco didn’t even have any sheets to play from, but he played what he knew from memory, and amongst the mess and the frenzy of that room, just meters away from the thing that kept him tossing and turning at night; there, Draco found that heart in the hollow of his chest. The one that Mr. Singer had always told him to let play, and what he now realized wasn’t truly his heart; it was resonance.

The one he found in the mayhem of his life, that resided in his mind, that surrounded him where he played, and that confronted him out there in the real world, riddled with despair and death and fear and terror. Everything was chaos.

And from the chaos, Draco played the bad tunes freely; no sheets to read from, only his mind to provide him with what he needed, and his heart to make it flow into his fingers and lash out onto the old piano that creaked and ached with the power of his truth.

The worst part of his day was always leaving the piano with the cabinet behind him.

Music never left Draco, nor did Mr. Singer’s words. After the war, he moved out of the Mansion the second the Ministry deemed him and Narcissa to be allowed to continue living normally due to her saving Potter, albeit under regular surveillance – and Draco took nothing but his Bösendorfer.

He moved into a large top floor apartment in Central London, and bought everything brand new.

There was nothing from who he once was that he desired to keep around him now. Nothing but his music. He gave the Bösendorfer its own room, with large windows overlooking the London skyline, and nothing else in it.

Nights on end, Draco would sit there, through the dark nightlife of the city, playing to drown out the ravaging cries and screams of war from his mind. He stared at the keys and the shadows in the corner of the room, waiting for the Dark Lord himself to emerge and proclaim his timely return, just to shoot a flash of green at Draco and kill him dead.

Voldemort never appeared, nor did Fenrir Greyback, or Bellatrix, or Snape, or Lucius. Their voices swarmed through his ears and he played louder and louder until he heard nothing anymore. Not even Mr. Singer’s soothing voice telling him that it was all alright.

Phantom pains in his right forearm made him jerk every now and then, and he misplayed the keys, and he didn’t care, because the mayhem in his mind was still only simmering down into a steady stream of never-ending thoughts that still plagued him awake at night.

The world was calm again but the war in Draco’s soul had not subsided, and he could not find the free flow of music he had accessed during Sixth year. The world was moving on and Draco was rooted in spot, grappling at reality; crying and screaming at everyone around him, yet they would not hear.

He would sometimes lean forward and place his ear on the wood, imagining he was a near deaf Beethoven, desperately trying to decipher the music from the vibrations of the piano. And even though he was not even deaf, he still felt that the music was still not quite reaching him. Nothing reached him.

Laying there at night, waiting for a kiss on his forehead and a sweet whisper into his hair, but even that felt wrong now. All along, Draco had never been important.

He was no royalty. He was just the shell of a boy, and melodies were the only thing that could fill him up.

There were few things in life that Draco could count on always being there. A whirlwind of changing tutors and teachers in his childhood and the world around him crumbling as he grew into an adult left him with a desperate need for security; things that repeated themselves without ever changing, that made the turmoil in his head simmer down.

His Bösendorfer was one of them. It always stood proud and present in its designated room, his haven, where Draco would spend hours playing for the walls and the empty in his chest.

Every week, he went to get his groceries. He could employ someone to bring him what he needed, but Draco needed at least a few reasons to leave the solitude of his apartment. Usually on those trips, he would also visit bookshops or acquire new pieces to learn from the Muggle music shop down the street.

Once a month, he would get drinks with Theo Nott. They had never been the best of friends during school times, but once the war was over, Draco quickly realized that Theo carried the same pain and confusion, so he held onto him. Someone to understand, he thought.

And every six weeks, like clockwork, the ministry paid him a visit to make sure that he was not secretly still a Death Eater, plotting Voldemort’s return.

The old woman the ministry sent reminded Draco of his great great aunt; a solemn French woman he met a few times as a child, who seemed to be fused into her rocking chair by the window, knitting needles hovering and clacking in her lap as she stared out onto french fields behind the large mansion she lived in. Young Draco was convinced that she was actually dead, until he tugged at her robe once and screamed her name – sure she would not react – to be met with a stare cold enough to freeze hell over.

She had been a quiet, ever so present force, and Miss Harvelle brought a whisk of a long forgotten comfort, something he once knew as a child, into his home. The visits were never long; an hour at most. It only took a few spells, manual checks of every room and a quick talk to determine any inconsistencies of his daily schedule that could hint at hidden plans – and then she was gone again, notepad neatly packed into her bag and a stern look over the brim of her glass to release him from the inspection.

Draco was doing just alright, he thought. Almost fine.

He just needed resonance; to find peace within the calm world surrounding him, so beautiful against the roaring chaos in his mind.

One early Sunday morning in the cold February sleepy haze that the city was slowly waking up to, Draco was sat in his living room on the couch, staring out into the dormant metropolis. He owned few pieces of furniture; a couch, table where he always ate, and three large bookshelves lining the wall opposite to him, filled with books he had acquired since he moved out and on from the war. Naturally, there were lots of books about potions and Quidditch and magical history.

But speckled in between were Muggle classics like Great Expectations, A tale of two cities, The Great Gatsby – works he hid between his magic in quiet shame of his interest for the people he lived amongst.

Draco read a lot. It was his favourite pastime apart from playing the piano. There was not much else left to do for him, he believed.

The ticking clock announced nine am, and Draco stood up and walked to his front door. Miss Harvelle was always punctual.

But as he stood there, waiting like a statue for the ringing doorbell, it simply did not ring. Thirty seconds passed and Draco was utterly confused.

In the past two years, she had never once been late. Was she dead?

Draco paced the length of his hallway, the _tick – tick – tick_ of the clock a never-ending stomping in his mind and his heart rate was beginning to pick up – _not her too, not Miss Harvelle_ – and he felt his breath shortening, not again, not another one gone-

Seven minutes past nine, when Draco was well on the verge of a panic attack and watching the kettle broil to drown himself in calming tea, the doorbell rang, and he sprinted towards the door.

He tore open the door and was greeted with a smooth-faced Hermione Granger in an ungodly burgundy pantsuit that hurt his eyes.

“Granger?”, he blurted after a few seconds, not quite able of intelligent thought; he had not seen the witch in years, much less even thought about her, and here she stood on the one day Miss Harvelle was late, with a look on her face so stern, as if there were no question about her odd appearance at his door years after the war –

“Miss Harvelle fell sick. Bad case of Scrofungulus. I will temporarily replace her for your assigned inspections.”

“She’s not dead?”, Draco breathed, and Granger scrunched her nose.

“What? No, of course not. Can we get this over with?”

She stepped across the threshold and pushed past him, leaving Draco facing the empty hallway outside his door. The air around her smelled like sweet jasmine, and it made his head swirl for a moment. Then he closed the door quickly and hurried after her; she had already found the living room.

Was he gonna have to talk her about what he had been up to the past six weeks? Like he did with Miss Harvelle?

That was ridiculous. Granger was the last person he wanted to let know that he only left the house for groceries, and to go see the one friend he had.

He was not embarrassed. He simply did not want her to know.

When he turned the corner into his living room, she stood in the middle, hands on her hips in a defying stance, facing the city skyline. Her horrid pantsuit sprung out amongst the monochrome black and white furniture, as if she were the devil herself.

“Nice view you got.”

Draco didn’t respond.

Usually after Miss Harvelle arrived, he would wait in his living room with tea ready while she inspected his every room, and then joined him to talk for about half an hour. There was no way he was going to let Granger rummage through his stuff unsupervised.

“Let’s get started then, shall we?”, she said, turning around, and with a whip of her hair, Draco just now noticed that the untamed mane of their schooldays had been forced into proper curls that framed her face.

It reminded him of how she looked at the Yule Ball.

Draco was still caught in old memories of when times just seemed easier, when she brushed past him again.

Draco stood in the door, watching as she cast spells in every room and took in the surroundings of his life. Few belongings. No pictures. A calm to mirror what he longed for in his head.

“I’d have taken you for the more materialistic type. Paintings of yourself and stuff.”

She made comments like that here and there, in between whispering incantations. Draco stood stubborn, arms crossed, counting the minutes.

The last room was the Bösendorfer one.

“I didn’t know you played”, Granger said as she walked in, looking around to find nothing on the blank walls. Not a single piece of decoration.

“Don’t touch it”, Draco replied when she stepped closer, her hand raised to stroke over the elegant black cover. Her hand froze midair and retracted.

He watched her like a hawk, especially here, but she did not falter. She finished the last spells and took a long look outside the window where the city was slowly coming alive.

“The living room is last. We can talk there.”

Draco nodded and led the way back to where it had started. Usually, he’d have made tea long ago, but he did not like the thought of making Hermione Granger feel welcome in his home. But he had been raised well, so he asked if she wanted water, and she said yes, so he filled the angriest glass of water with a quick, hissed spell, thrusting it onto the living room table.

“I took a look at Miss Harvelle’s notes. Seems like there’s never much deviation from your usual schedule”, she began talking after she took a sip, sat on the edge of the black couch. Draco stood near his bookshelves, staring at her.

Her eyes flickered up towards him over the brim of the glass, eyebrows knotting confusedly.

“For Merlin’s sake, Draco, I’m not thrilled about this either. If you stopped acting like I could bite you any moment, we can get this over with faster.”

She was never one to back down from a fight, even after all these years, and Draco sniffed away memories of a bleeding nose.

“Fine. If you know what I’m up to, there’s no need for this interview then, is it?”, he said, stepping closer.

Hermione Granger was sat on his couch with a notepad and a pen ready to write, and it seemed like a fever dream. When was Miss Harvelle going to come back?

“Trust me, I wish it were that easy. You know why we have to do this. Come on”, and she had the audacity to pat the couch next to her.

Draco slowly approached and perched himself on the very end of the couch, as far away from her as possible.

“I see your routine is mostly meeting with Theodore Nott now and going about your groceries once a week. Any deviations from that lately?”, she began, and the notepad besides her shook with excitement. The pen hovering in the air took swirls, preparing itself to write down. He gripped his own planner tight; he had to write down almost everything he did, to be able to answer any possible question.

Miss Harvelle always wrote by hand, the old-fashioned way, with a quill and ink. This was wrong.

“No.”

“Good. What were you doing at three pm last Wednesday?”

Detail questions like these kept raining, as they always did, but Draco felt the pressure building in his chest with every single one he answered.

How could she just sit there and do her job, able to look him in the eyes? After everything that happened?

After he came out on the wrong side of the war?

After years of bullying? And taunting?

Hermione Granger reminded him of the worst part of himself. The one he had so desperately tried to leave behind. That stupid, scared little boy who could not tell right from wrong.

“Well then, you do play the piano a lot. Who would have thought”, she said after an eternity of questions, and with a sigh of relief, the notepad and pen closed themselves up and shot into her open purse.

“How long will you be replacing Miss Harvelle for?”, he asked then. His shoulders were starting to hurt from how rigid he had been sitting, every muscle strained, unmoving.

“At least three or four more visits. Like I said, I’m enjoying this as little as you are.”

“Can’t I get a new one?”, he asked, and she made a surprised noise. He looked at her, met her rounded, wide eyes with a hopeful glance.

“New what?”

“Whatever your job is. A new person to come check in on me.”

She rolled her eyes and stood suddenly, nostrils flaring.

“Don’t hurt yourself trying to make this any less comfortable. No, Draco, I can’t be replaced. You’ll just have to deal with me for now. Like I said, I’m not happy about this either. Let’s just try and get this over with.”

“I thought you’d be like, on track to be the Minister of Magic by now. Why are you checking in on your friendly neighborhood Death Eater?”, he demanded, getting up as well and following her into the hallway. Her shoes clacked loudly against the clean tiles, hurting in his ears.

“None of your business. You have six weeks of peace now. Use it wisely, I’ll be back.”

And before he could hurl anything else after her, the door slammed, and he stood alone in the hallway. The living room smelled like jasmine for the rest of the day.

That evening, Draco played until his fingers were red and the music was not distinct anymore; he was just playing to distract his roaring thoughts, and the reality of having to see Hermione Granger again in six weeks.

Hermione Granger was a bloody menace, and Draco knew one week later to be wary of her.

He had no idea how she was doing it. It was simply impossible. But after two years, he went from not even thinking about her to having her assigned his case, and somehow popping up everywhere he went.

It started that next Friday evening, when Draco was at the Phoenix’ Tail; a bar in a wizarding quarter he oftentimes frequented with Theo – when he looked up from his first sip of whiskey to see her across the darkly lit floor in a booth, part of the holy quartet of his nightmares; Potter fused to the hip with that annoying redhead, her stupid brother and Granger opposite of them, all laughing and giggling like they were having the time of their life.

“Is seeing people being happy making you miserable?”, Theo asked after he turned to see what Draco had been staring at, slack-jawed.

Their happiness was surely one of the things he didn’t need to see this fine evening, but that wasn’t why he was so shocked; no, it was rather seeing Granger twice within one week after years of not even knowing if she was alive or not. The universe was playing stupid bloody tricks on him.

“Sod off. Last time I saw you, you were heartbroken over that stupid moving picture that came out years ago.”

“It’s called a movie, and it was devastating, you bastard. That ship did not need to sink that dramatically, and Jack deserved to live.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about”, Draco mumbled through the chip he had popped into his mouth. “Muggle literature is one thing, but movies? They all look horribly made, and the story never makes sense.”

And so they argued about Muggle entertainment culture for the rest of the night, and the next time Draco looked up, the booth across the bar was empty, lest for a few unfinished butterbeers waiting to be cleaned away. Maybe he had merely imagined her.

Peace was a figment of his imagination; this was a fact Draco realized two weeks later when he was stood in one of the many aisles of Flourish and Blott’s, leafing through a new book about potions, and out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a bushy head moving around the end of his aisle.

It was bloody fucking Granger again.

He snapped the book shut and jammed it under his arm, striding down the aisle, looking around.

There she was, her back to him, leaning against the bookshelf in the aisle parallel to his, buried in a book.

A younger Draco would have cleared his throat now and demanded if she was stalking him, maybe mocking her wild hair.

This Draco knew he was not merely important enough to merit that kind of interest, so he turned on his heel and stormed to the front of the store, dropping the potions book somewhere as he walked, and out of the stuffy shop, away from Granger.

Whatever was happening that made her see her around so bloody much all of a sudden, it was making him feel sick to the stomach. It bugged him to no avail; there was no explanation for it. Just stupid coincidences.

It drove him mad. The pattern was broken. She was turning his world upside down, and she didn’t even know.

Before she came back, Draco only saw her one more time again; in another pub while he was out with Theo, a week before she was due to come back, and at this point, Draco had accepted that she was simply a threat to everything that made his life even somewhat bearable.

At nine am that Sunday morning, the doorbell rang.

“I see you’re on time”, he greeted her, and then he leaned back to take in her lime green pantsuit. “And you’ve found an even worse colour than burgundy.”

“And you haven’t moved heaven and earth to get rid of me. Very sweet.”

She pushed past him as it seemed was their routine now, and he followed her around again as she conducted her spells.

“From how much you play, you have to be good”, she said when they were in the piano room.

“I don’t play for audiences”, he replied.

“Not what I was saying.”

He decided to be nice and offer her tea this time around, but he chose the cheapest one he had available; the one he had not been able to use up since he moved in because of how utterly horrid it tasted.

Draco smiled to himself when she pulled a face like sour lemons after the first sip.

“Is that gasoline?”

“I haven’t checked, but it’s a definite possibility.”

“Have you ever thought about decorating? It feels like a museum here”, she said, setting down the cup and gesturing towards the spare furniture they were sat on and the bookshelves lining the walls.

“I don’t need pointless things to look at. Just do the interview so you can leave.”

She sighed and got up, her notepad hovering near the couch.

“What were you doing last Wednesday?”

Always the same first question, and she seemed to know them by heart. As Draco answered from memory, she slowly walked by the bookshelves, inspecting the covers.

“And after you and Theo – Is that Crime and Punishment?”, she interrupted her own bored voice, and Draco look up from her cold cup on the table. She held his copy of the book in her hands, eyes wide. She looked almost disgusted.

“Don’t piss your pants, Granger. It’s a book.”

Her eyes flitted towards him, and her expression fell.

“No, I’m not – I’m not judging. Just surprised.”

Draco squinted at her as she returned the book to its spot in the shelf.

“After you and Theo departed last Friday night, you came home?”

The interview was done ten minutes later, and Draco wondered how long it’d be until he saw her again; because he was quite sure it would not take the usual six weeks.

It lasted three weeks. It was at a Muggle bookstore this time, a quiet corner store that was just quaint and calm, not like the big chain stores that had been popping up all over London lately.

When he entered the stuffy shop, the bell rang and the loud noises of the street and tourists and city behind him were cut silent with the slam of the door.

And at the front of the store, where the owners had placed a few comfortable armchairs for patrons to rest and read; there she was sat, buried deep in some book, and Draco thought he was hallucinating.

Getting caught red handed in a muggle bookstore of all places was sure to keep him up for a few nights.

She had not looked up at his entry yet, and Draco stormed into the depths of the store before she could. In the far back of the gardening section, he caught his breath and willed his pounding heart to stop choking him.

He just wanted to get some new books. Why was the universe so cruel?

Luckily, he was surrounded by distractions, and after his breath had stopped coming in short bursts, he picked up the first book he saw to forget about the devil waiting at the front.

It did not take long until he had almost forgotten about her, and by the time he had acquired a small pile of books he wanted to check out, pages deep into a novel of manners about a girl finding love in the Edwardian era, he was ripped out of his focused reading by a shuffle at the end of the aisle. He looked around confused, not sure what had disturbed him, until he saw a small jar on top of his pile of books. He picked it up slowly.

It was a candle. He had seen them at the storefront before but never stopped to pay more attention. How –

He gripped the jar tightly as realization dawned.

With the pile of books jammed underneath his arm, he strode to the front, where she still was, of course; putting on her jacket as she leaned down to continue reading the book opened on the small table next to the armchair.

She looked up at his approaching footsteps.

“A candle, Granger? Really?”

“It’s not going to kill you, you know. It even smells like a museum, your home.”

She put her hair in a ponytail all unbothered, as if she was not trying to upturn everything Draco knew, and he sputtered.

“A bloody candle?! What am I supposed to do with it!”

“You usually burn them. Do I have to explain to you how candles work?”, she asked, scoffing.

“I bloody know how candles work. I want to know why you gave this to me.”

She picked up her purse and stuffed the book inside, then looked at the jar in his hand that he had just shaken at her.

“I told you. Might make your museum a bit more comfortable. I already paid for it, so do with it what you want.”

And with a whirlwind of the opening door letting in the city noise and a gush of cold air, she was gone.

It was a mistake, taking the candle home, and Draco threw it away thrice, retrieving it from the bin again every time. It stood in the living room table, taunting him; he stared at it for hours, unable to focus on his reading because in his peripheral, there was always the stupid bloody candle.

He lasted two weeks before he finally moved his wand to touch the wick and ignited it.

It smelled like old books and he library at Hogwarts. Draco played for over two hours without a break that night, the candle burning on the floor beside him – Merlin help him if he put fire in a jar onto his beloved Bösendorfer – and the sweet, nostalgic smell made him hit the keys harder than he could have remembered ever having done before.

The candle burned out before the week was over, and he went back to the muggle store to pick up a new one, along with a few other smells. He kept the new ones in his kitchen cupboard, except for one, that he put on the living room table and burned it whenever he felt like it.

It really did make him feel more at home. He hated that it came from Granger.

By the time she came back again, Draco had not seen her around anymore, but she was ever so present still. Her pantsuit was bright yellow this time. After her usual routine, they went into the living room, and she stopped dead in her tracks in the doorframe.

“What? Go on”, Draco barked from behind, and she took a small step forward. He squeezed into the living room through the small gap she had created.

“You used the candle”, she mumbled, and when he turned towards her, he saw that her eyes were transfixed on the almost empty glass jar. He had used up three already.

He wanted to sneer something mean; about how it wasn’t that big of a deal, but he’d be lying through his teeth; it was a big deal, to him at least, and he couldn’t let her believe that she had caused a change in his life –

“It smells like the library at Hogwarts, doesn’t it?”, she said in a dreamy voice, as if she were lost in thought.

“Let’s just get this over with”, he said with a sigh, sitting down on the couch.

There was a smile on her lips, one she was biting away as she sat down, and it made Draco furrow his brows.

“Why don’t you play for other people?”, she asked in between questions.

“I don’t see why you’d care.”

She rolled her eyes.

“No need to be so defensive. It’s a simple question.”

“Not the kind of question I have to answer. Go on”, he waved his hand and motioned for her to go on with the interview.

She sprinkled in these questions every now and then, almost as if trying to catch him off guard. Little did Granger know about him; Draco’s guard was always up.

Always, except when he was playing. And he had never let anyone hear him play but Mr. Singer and Narcissa, and he was not going to change that anytime soon. Music was the only thing that could just barely, for a short time, fill the gaping empty in his chest, and he was not going to share that feeling with anyone else.

“You should read ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’. It’s one of my favourites, I didn’t see it in your bookshelf.”

Draco almost asked what it was about, but he caught himself and offered her nothing but a blank stare. She sighed, and the notepad flipped to a new page, the pen scrawled something, and the paper got ripped out, floating through the air to rest on his living room table.

“Just consider it.”

With that, her things disappeared into her purse and she got up. Draco stared at the title of the book scrawled on the note, underneath the authors name. By the time he looked up, she was already in the hallway. He scrambled to his feet and caught up with her.

She had opened the door already.

“Granger, stop.”

She froze in motion and turned her head to look at him over her shoulder.

“What?”

His breath seemed to freeze in his windpipe, but he choked out the words nonetheless.

“I’m sorry.”

Her hand dropped from where it had been on the doorhandle, and she turned to fully face him.

“Sorry about what? Did you poison the tea?”

Draco cringed, shaking his head.

“No, I’m – I’m sorry about the past.”

The moment seemed to stretch out forever between them, and Draco waited for a reaction that never came. He gasped again, shakily, trying not to let it show in his voice.

“About who I was. What I did to you. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

She was watching him like he was a rabid dog that could go feral any second; or maybe like a ghost that appeared in front of her. He could not pinpoint what she was thinking; not in the slightest. Her face was a blank canvas, except for the widened, round eyes.

Then, slowly, she nodded, and the door was all but closed behind her. The receding footsteps in the hallway repeated in Draco’s head for the rest of the day, and as he played for hours from the afternoon into the dark night, he incorporated the beat of her steps into the melodies until he could not even decipher anymore what he was actually trying to play.

Three weeks later, Draco saw her at the Phoenix’ Tail after his third fire whiskey, and as their gazes crossed against the bar, she shot him a timid smile. He lifted his glass slightly towards her and nodded.

“Did you just toast to Granger? Do I need to bring you to St. Mungos?”, Theo whisper-yelled, his head whipping around wildly from Draco to where Granger was sat – deep in conversation with Potter’s girlfriend – obviously shocked with recent developments.

“Shut up. Tell me about that lizard you bought.”

Theo had immediately forgotten about Granger.

“Well, his name is Steve, but he told me he wants to be called Earl, so I’ve contacted a judge about a name change – “

When Granger returned for her next visit, Draco had put on the best tea he had, and he had read mockingbird cover to cover twice.

He opened the door to a most atrocious, dull orange pantsuit on legs.

“Are you trying to win the Olympics for worst work attire?”

“At least I have a job. I don’t think you’re contributing to society much.”

He could not help the corner of his lips curving into a smile and he was glad she didn’t see it; she had already moved past him to check his kitchen first.

“Before Hogwarts, I got lessons for three years. I wish I had played more”, she said that day in the piano room, in between spells, staring at his Bösendorfer longingly.

“It’s never too late to pick up again”, he said, hands buried in his pockets, leaning in the doorframe, watching the back of her head. He’d noticed that her hair was only ever tamed for work; whenever he saw her anywhere else, it was the same bushy mane he remembered from school.

He decided then and there, that he liked the wild curls much better.

“I guess. It’s gorgeous though. More expensive than my yearly rent, I think.”

“Most likely.”

He almost added that it was a present for his 13th birthday, but then he remembered that he was not having small talk with Hermione Granger while they were standing in his most private haven. Absolutely no way.

When they moved to the living room, steaming hot tea ready, Granger got up from the couch again and looked through his bookshelf as he answered her questions.

“After getting your groceries, you went home? At approximately what – “

She stopped dead in her tracks, staring into the bookshelf. She reached out and pulled out a book.

It was his well-read copy of Mockingbird.

“You read it?”, she gaped, the small book falling open in her hand, the broken spine making the pages flare out.

“Of course I did. It’s a good book.”

She looked up at him, eyes widened, her mouth fallen open to form a small O.

“I can read, you know. No need to act so surpris- “

“Do you think he did it? Boo Radley? He killed Bob Ewell?”

Her eyes were alight with glee, her voice jumping with enthusiasm; her whole demeanour changed.

Draco could not resist it for a second.

She overstayed the usual visit by over half an hour and Draco had not noticed the time passing even a little bit; they were too deep in discussing the themes and characters of the novel.

When she left, Draco lit the candle and waited for his pounding heart to simmer down, gaze fixed on a new note on the table, next to her empty cup of tea; filled with titles and authors she had recommended him next. He could not remember the last time he had talked to someone like that.

Like they wanted to talk to him, too.

It became their new routine. She would do her tour, ask questions about his music that he never answered, and after the interview she poked holes in his chest with never ending questions about what he thought about the books she'd recommended.

He didn’t read every single book of hers, mind you. Some just didn’t catch his attention like others did; but she never seemed to mind. She was far too excited about the ones he did read.

 _I want to play for her,_ he thought one Sunday morning, on her sixth or seventh visit, watching her gesture wildly, talking fast, yet it seemed, not fast enough for all her thoughts to come sputtering out in time.

Draco had always thought that Granger was an annoying know-it-all, stubborn and obnoxious; and yes, she did know a lot, and she was very stubborn, but not in the way he’d expected.

_“If you say one bad word about Mr. Darcy, I’ll gut the Bösendorfer.”_

If any other person had threatened his piano like that, Draco would have at least considered turning their guts inside out. When she said it though, he could only bite back a smile.

She was so unabashedly passionate. I made him feel warm; a holy fire burning slowly in his chest, and it flared up every time he lit a candle or watched the pile of her books he had yet to read, grow.

He woke up in the morning and he felt a bit less bored than the day before.

He kept seeing her in pubs and in the bookstores as well, and he stopped turning around and walking away; instead, he raised his hand in a quick wave.

“You’re different than I thought, you know.”

She said seconds after the thought of wanting to play for her first crossed his mind.

“What do you mean? Am I not scary and depressed enough for your liking?”, he replied, lifting his mug of tea to take a sip.

She rolled her eyes.

“No everything I say is meant to insult you. I meant it in a good way.”

Draco set the mug down.

“How? In a good way?”, he asked, suddenly extremely interested. She was not giving him an answer; just to be cross, he was sure.

“Just different. More open.”

“I leave my home twice a week if I’m lucky. If I were any more closed off, I’d be in Azkaban.”

“I didn’t mean it like that”, she said, and stretched her arms over her head in a silent yawn.

Draco’s eyes got caught on the slope of her neck and a wayward curl that lay snug against it, her creamy skin near impossible to look away from.

“How did you mean it then?”, he asked, tearing his eyes away as she rolled her neck with a quiet groan. Merlin, what was she doing? Putting on a show?

“Bloody Ron, did my head in last night – Just accept that I meant it in a good way. You’re so stubborn”, she finished her mumbling. Draco raised an eyebrow.

“Says you?”

“Yes, says I. And I – “

“You’re still together with Weasley?”

That caught her attention. She gave him an incredulous look, eyebrows high on her forehead.

“Why do you care?”, she asked.

“You know literally everything about my lack of life. I think I can know one thing”, Draco countered. She nodded slowly.

“That makes sense.”

She stared at him. Draco stared back, shaking his head.

“So? Are you with him?”

“I have no idea why on earth that concerns you so much but no, we are not. He – “

He sensed that she was about to tell him whatever Weasley had done last night to do her head in – probably something incredibly stupid, if he was still anything like what he used to be – but last second, it seemed that she remembered where she was and who she was talking to.

“We’re not together. Any other trivia of my life you’d like to know?”, she continued.

“Yeah, why do your pantsuits always look so fucking horrid?”, he asked, gesturing at the baby blue monstrosity she was wearing. She shook her head.

“I like bright colours. Sue me.”

“Gladly, my eyes have been wanting to seek emotional damages since you first popped up here dressed like a burgundy nightmare.”

She sighed deeply and got up.

“Well then, I think we’re done for today.”

And if he had not heard the smile in her voice as she turned to leave, Draco was sure he would not have slept well that night.

He saw her again the next Friday night, at the Phoenix’ Tail, which was more busy than usual; the owners had chipped in to buy a cheap piano, barely tuned, that was crowded for most of the night by curious, albeit drunk, customers wanting to show off their skills.

Theo had been on his toes all night, waiting for the crowd to disperse so he could prove everyone how undeniably good he was; liquid courage and all made him believe he was suddenly a concert pianist. Draco didn’t mind his antics, until –

“Is that Granger? With the Weasel girlfriend?”

Draco’s neck cracked when he whipped around quickly, following Theo’s gaze. It was late, and the rush hour had finally simmered down into low murmurs, interrupted just sometimes by horrid playing; the piano was now finally forgotten by the comfortably drunk patrons, and yes, in fact, the two women were sitting there and playing slow tunes. Either of the other two men usually accompanying them were not in sight anywhere.

“Let’s go say hi. Granger has been assigned your case anyway, hasn’t she?”, Theo chirped, and he was out of his seat before Draco could react. He groaned and rose quickly, hurrying after the uncontrollable man-child.

As the two men approached, Draco could make out the tune Granger was playing, but only barely; it was a butchered version of Für Elise.

His very first piece. He remembered Mr. Singers warm suggestion like it had been yesterday.

“How long are you going to hog that piano for, ladies? I’ve been itching all night!”, Theo proclaimed with wide open arms, and the hesitant tunes stopped as Granger and Weasley turned around to see the maniac approaching them with Draco in tow, head bowed towards the ground.

“Draco?”, Granger said, and he met her gaze.

“Granger”, he replied, and she raised an eyebrow.

Draco looked towards Theo, who had somehow already involved Weasley in an animated conversation. They had worked together a few years ago, he suddenly remembered; Draco was not sure what on, but it had involved her Quidditch team and Theo interviewing her as a sidegig.

There was an awkward silence between him and Granger, despite the soundscape of the bar they were in. Draco dug his heel into the floor.

“So. Für Elise?”, he asked, and Granger turned back around to face the piano.

“Yes. But, you know, I haven’t played in ages. I’m terrible.”

Draco stepped closer, stopping beside her and watching as she put her hands on the keys. His hands were tightly grasped behind his back. He had never talked this much too her outside of the interviews.

“See? I can do the first few, but then – “

She managed to play about the first five notes correctly, but then –

She pressed the wrong key – so obviously the wrong key, it made Draco roll his eyes – so confidently, destroying the lovely melody where it was just supposed to pick up, and she turned her head towards him.

“See? I can’t find the right one!”

Draco shot a quick look across the bar, as if someone were watching him.

Of course not, he wasn’t royalty.

He leaned down and waited until she retracted her hand, before laying his fingers on the keys and quickly playing the correct tune. He held down the one she’d misplayed, waiting as the tune stretched out.

“This one. It’s half a note higher.”

“Oh!”

And she repeated the melody as he had played it perfectly, over and over, and then she looked up at him and shot him the most perfect smile that split her cheeks and lit her warm eyes.

“Thank you!”

She had already turned back towards the piano and replayed the melody, but Draco was still gaping. When was the last time someone had smiled at him like that?

He couldn’t remember. He suddenly felt sick. Like a pit in his stomach had opened and swallowed his own intestines.

“Excuse me”, he said, and turned on his heel to walk fast – not too fast – to the restrooms. In the grimy light of the bathroom, Draco washed his hands and stared at himself in the mirror.

It almost felt like in Second Year, when he still believed that a Muggleborn’s touch could sully his royalty; he suddenly felt horrid around her. But in a much different way. A pounding heart, fluttering fingertips, a roaring stomach. Was he falling sick?

The mere thought of going back out there and seeing her again made him want to retch.

That wasn’t him anymore, though. Draco had done his due diligence to rid himself of everything the old Draco would have believed with no question. Yet why did he feel so on edge around her now?

_I want to play for her._

He had pushed aside that thought since it popped up a week ago, and it hit him with its whole force again now.

Draco Malfoy never played for anyone. He didn’t share his music. It was the only thing he kept for himself, because he had to give everything else away. His childhood. His innocence. His own will.

And yet, the image of her in his piano room, standing beside him and listening as he played whatever his heart demanded seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Like something he never even knew he wanted.

The man in the mirror staring back at him was not the Draco he knew, and it scared him. His fingers were itching to play out the anxiety until they were sore.

He left then, telling Theo – still deep in conversation with Weasley for whatever reason – that he wasn’t feeling well.

Draco played until one am that night, but it never felt quite right. There was always something missing. The turmoil in his chest and head was worse than ever before, and he blamed Hermione Granger for it.

A bloody menace.

Draco reread every single book she had ever recommended. He played melodies he thought she would like.

She didn’t seem like the sappy, romantic type. More so easy, yet precise and strict. In a good way; pieces of simple melodies that sounded just perfect together; easy to mess up but with an even higher reward when done right. Just to make sure he wasn’t imagining anything, he attempted Liszt and almost went insane.

He played variations of Für Elise until his head hurt and he couldn’t sleep because it kept repeating in his ears. The best version of it was still the hesitant, stocky melody she’d played in that crowded bar.

Nothing he played sounded better than that.

But no matter how hard he tried, he could not find the heart to play like he truly aspired. Free, with no constraints; the music flowing through his veins to his every extremity, so unrestrained and untied.

There was no resonance between the yelling in his head and the soothing, calm serenity around him. The closest thing to that peace he’d felt in the bar, playing the melody as he leaned across her, breathing in that sweet Jasmine scent.

It was one evening, when Draco was reading Mockingbird again, a candle sadly flickering its last wax away, he finally realized that bit by bit, Hermione Granger had invaded his life. Everywhere he looked around, bits and pieces of her were there. In the dozens of candles he had used up; the growing pile of new books in his bookshelf; the new tea he had bought because she mentioned her favourite was peppermint.

Maybe she had not suddenly appeared in his life out of nowhere either; maybe she had been in his proximity all along, and he just never noticed.

She was everywhere but the piano room. Draco felt as though it all shifted and felt out of place by just a bit; like she was supposed to be in there, too.

It was Sunday morning, nine am, exactly six weeks since she’d last been here, and Draco was perched at the edge of his couch, pulling at his fingers nervously, watching the clock tick by. The tea was hot and ready on the table, and he was counting the seconds.

She had not been late once since the first visit. He watched the hand move towards the nine attentively, holding his breath.

It struck nine.

His leg stopped bouncing and the air in his lungs stilled; he could not have gasped for breath, even if he wanted to do so.

Then, the doorbell rang, and he shot up like a live sock puppet, not sprinting to the door – but walking fast, faster than one could consider walking, maybe.

And when he took one last breath, gripped the doorknob tight and swung open the entrance, there was no one else but Miss Harvelle.

“Mr. Malfoy”, she nodded, and he stepped aside, the world a bit hazy, to let her in.

“Miss Granger, she’s… not coming back?”, he asked stupidly.

“Unless I fall sick again, no she won’t. Let’s get started then, shall we?”

And so they did.

It was stupid, so bloody stupid, but Draco felt that he was going insane. His practices had been going well, better than ever before, and the moment Granger stopped coming for the inspections, it all dropped off the face of the earth. His fingers were not connected to his brain like before.

He could barely even play Für Elise without laying his forehead against the dark wood of the piano, whispering and mouthing along with the notes but they just sounded horrible, no matter what he did.

He didn’t go out with Theo anymore. He could barely get up from his bed, burying himself with books, wondering what she would think about certain characters and their actions and what it all meant.

There was absolutely no way that after all this time, he was going to fall into a depression over Hermione bloody Granger. Draco sat up in bed one night, after tossing and turning for hours, determined to figure out what the voices in his head were screaming and yelling about so indistinctly.

He swung his legs out of bed and tapped through his dark apartment, sitting down at the Bosendörfer and started playing.

He did not need look at the keys; it was too dark to see them anyway. No, he was staring out the window into the live city below, imagining her standing there. Listening, waiting for him to finish.

And he found that inkling in his chest again.

_You said you wanted to hear me play. Come by when you’re free._

_~ D.M._

He pondered the wording for hours, rewrote the letter over and over again, until he returned to the first draft, Floo’ed to the Manor to use one of the owls there and then returned to lay lifeless in his bed, staring at the ceiling.

It was a last attempt to silence the mayhem in his mind; he didn’t know if it would work. He was sure she wasn’t going to come anyway. She would be insane to do so.

He didn’t return to see if she’d replied. He knew a rejection would just make him feel worse. So he moved through his day like a corpse, following the same old routines; playing and practicing his piece, reading her books, basking in the warmth of her candles, trying her peppermint tea and deciding that it was disgusting.

Wondering what horrific pantsuit she was wearing that day. He was not sure if she could pull off a neon pink. She probably could.

If her hair looked neat and tamed, or wild and unabashedly curly. If she was sat in one of the countless bookstores around London, reading one book after the other.

He was making himself another peppermint tea – sue him, maybe it wasn’t actually that bad – when the doorbell rang, and he almost spilled hot boiling water all over himself. He cursed loudly and glanced at the clock.

It had been a week since he sent the letter. No way.

He cursed again as he paced down the hallway, swinging open the door.

There she was, in normal clothing, jeans and a jacket, her hair just like he’d imagined it. With her purse clutched in her hand and a muted look on her face like she’d been caught doing something bad.

“You said to come by – “

The sound of her hesitant voice made his breath hitch, and he just watched, unable to tear away his gaze. She was here, in front of him.

She had actually come.

He nodded mutely, and stepped aside, widening the door to let her in. She approached cautiously, as if every step could be a mistake.

He closed the door.

“You can leave your jacket here”, he said, pointing at the empty hooks on the blank wall.

She shuffled behind him as he walked away, to the piano room.

He had added an armchair to the corner of the room. Just for her.

Even though he had not even believed she would come; he wanted to, so badly.

He lifted the heavy cover and placed his fingers on the right keys; waiting, rigidly, straight as a candle, for her to come in.

She did not sit in the armchair, but stopped in the doorframe behind him. It made no difference to him.

The room slowly filled with music as he started playing.

It was a simple melody at first; nothing complicated, and he listened not to the music itself, but the cavity in his chest. And there it was, that feeling he had not felt since the Room of Requirement, finding faith in that mistuned, old piano that creaked under his hands.

Resonance.

He was finally calm, rested, at peace it seemed; her presence behind him had an inexplicable effect on his playing. It reminded him of Mr. Singer; always at his side, a sweet and serene force hovering, that could not make the turmoil in his head disappear just yet.

It was gone now, and Dracos hands flew across the keyboard like he had been meant to play this very piece his whole life; so easy, flowing from his hands into the piano and creating the most perfect crescendo of music he had ever heard.

It filled the room to the brim, layer over layer, and it seemed like the bubble would never burst. He hoped it wouldn’t.

The last resistance was finally broken down. He had found the cure in a witty witch in horrible pantsuits and a good taste in candles, who smelled like Jasmine and slowly turned his life upside down with the very smallest of gestures.

By the time he was playing the climax, a growing pounding of the music as he had always imagined it; there was no trembling in his hands like earlier, nothing but confidence and security as he played.

When he pressed the last notes, he lifted his fingers and the swelling music was all but gone, from one second to the other, like it was meant to be played. A pindrop could have been heard.

He turned his hands, looking at his palms. He was shaking again, and he wiped them on his pants as he slowly stood up and turned to face her.

She was leaning in the doorframe her arms crossed in a defying stance, but her rosy cheeks and rounded eyes seemed out of place.

“I’ve never played for someone before.”

The words came out in little more than a whisper. Her eyes flitted around the features of his face; warm honey burning itself into his mind. Like she was searching for an answer.

“Why me?”

He stepped around the bench, closer.

“I don’t know. It just – “

He looked down, at the ground, and noticed her frayed shoes. Sneakers he thought, muggles called them. One of her legs had begun bouncing ever so slightly; a tremor he only noticed because it mirrored his own.

“It just felt like I should.”

Her arms dropped and she straightened up, walking towards him and tilting her face up to inspect him closely.

“Did it feel good?”

She was so close, her Jasmine scent hugging him tight and squeezing the air out of him. There were specks of dark brown in her eyes, he noticed, and he wanted to count every single one. He nodded quickly.

“You read all the books I gave you.”

“I did”, he breathed.

“You bought peppermint tea for me.”

Her voice was soft, melting like butter in his ears. He pressed his eyes shut for a moment. Then he nodded.

“I did.”

Before he could look at her again, he felt warm arms wrapping around him, hugging him tight, and hair being pushed in his face, a nose nuzzling his neck. His heart skipped a dozen beats.

He hugged her back, hesitantly, as if she could push him away again any second.

“You’re different than I thought”, she mumbled into the fabric of his shirt, and quiet laughter bubbled up out of his chest.

“I don’t know what you expected. I’m no royalty, Granger.”

She didn’t get the joke, he thought, but one day she would.

Draco woke up to a slow tune that waded through his dreams into his conscious, and when he blearily opened his eyes to blink at the ceiling, he could just make out what it was.

Für Elise. An advanced version muffled through the walls of his apartment.

He turned his head to the side, stretching out his arm, roaming across the cold side of the bed next to him.

There was a wrong tune, and it made him cringe. He moved out of the bed, making his way through the apartment, towards the Bösendorfer room.

It had a couch now, an armchair and small table. A painting hanging above; she had chosen it. Something from the Abstract Expressionist era.

And there she was sat, in her short sleeping shorts and an old Slytherin shirt of his, her ankles crossed beneath the bench; hesitantly playing those tunes as her gaze was fixed on the sheet of notes before her. Her hair was a monstrosity in the mornings, and its wild sight made him smile.

The music stopped at his arrival, and she turned sideways, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.

It had taken him a year to allow her to touch the piano. She played rarely; she knew how much it meant to him. But every time she did, he fell in love with her a bit more. Seeing her play, even imperfectly, was – among other things, of course – one of the best things to wake up to.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you”, she whispered, as if there was someone else still sleeping in the room.

He cleared his throat and gestured for her to make space on the bench.

“You know I can feel it when someone plays in here. It always wakes me up.”

He placed his hands over hers, moving them to the right keys.

“Like this.”

Guiding her fingers, he played the tune. It was more complicated than what she had played those years ago in the bar; Draco was proud to have helped her improve so much.

She leaned her head on his shoulder, watching as they played together.

“You always know the right keys. It’s unfair”, she yawned, rubbing her nose into his shoulder, scratching it.

“Mr. Singer taught me perfect hearing. It’s a perk you’re profiting off of”, he replied gently.

He had told her about Mr. Singer a few months after their first date, as they were laid in bed late at night, limbs tangled and slow breaths fanning against the others skin. She had wiped away his tears and kissed his forehead, whispering that it was okay.

It really was okay, he thought then, when she lifted her head to look at him, all sleepy and perfect with a lazy smile on her lips and that warm glint in her eyes. He faced her, forgetting to play, and the keys their hands were on, echoed through the empty room as she leaned forward to capture his lips in a sweet, slow kiss, sighing and melting against him.

He had found resonance. It was okay.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, please consider leaving a comment or kudos!! 
> 
> Come bully me on twitter @barnettdidit


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